


same story, new page

by bigspoonnoya



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Confessions, First Kiss, Other, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 09:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6046765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigspoonnoya/pseuds/bigspoonnoya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kageyama likes Hinata. Hinata likes Kenma. Kenma is kind of scary, but also... </p><p>Kageyama is confused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	same story, new page

**Author's Note:**

> this was commission by my pal tori, who loves kagehinaken. i've always been interested in the idea of kageyama being half jealous of kenma and half crushin' on him, so that's what you got.
> 
> the rating is just for language!

It takes Kageyama Tobio two years, two months, one week, and a handful of hours and minutes to realize he has a crush on Hinata Shouyou.

That’s counting from the moment they collided in the campus cafeteria, Hinata’s morning tamago gohan sticking to the middle of Kageyama’s shirt before plummeting to the floor with an unattractive splat, and Kageyama dumping lukewarm tea all down Hinata’s jeans. And you would think—they would laugh about it, introduced themselves with breathy voices and blushes, like a meeting in a romantic comedy, or something.

But no. They’d gotten into a very public screaming match about whose responsibility this was. Trays were thrown. Fire alarms were pulled by concerned peers.

In the process of bringing Hinata his freshly-laundered jeans, per the peace treaty set down by the administrator who’d broken up their fight, Kageyama noticed the volleyball posters hanging up in Hinata’s dorm. He’d asked about them, and Hinata—willing to talk about his passion with just about anybody—responded enthusiastically. They’d ended up talking for hours. They regularly bickered but ultimately, united by common interests (and the fact that neither of them exactly hated to argue), they became friends. And that was that. Except it wasn’t.

Kageyama’s realization of his crush on Hinata comes during a pick-up volleyball match on the lawn outside the engineering building. They jump for a block at the same time and collide mid-air; for obvious reasons, this sends Hinata flying, while Kageyama lands relatively unshaken. Kageyama quickly rushes to kneel by his fallen comrade, asking if he’s okay, and he—leans in to kiss his forehead.

He doesn’t actually kiss his forehead. He’s thankful for that—would he have ever heard the end of it? But he knows what he’d been about to do, and he knows what it means. And after that he starts to see Hinata differently—or, at least, he realizes that he’s been seeing Hinata differently for a while now. He notices himself noticing things. The fit of his clothes. How impossibly bright he smiles. He begins to find it endearing, rather than annoying, that Hinata is so chipper first thing in the morning.

It takes him another two months, three weeks, and a handful of hours and minutes to decide what he’s going to do about the fact that he has a crush on Hinata Shouyou. Which is, ask Hinata to go out with him.

This is a pretty bold proposition. Even though they’re both in their third year now and Hinata doesn’t make his sexuality a secret—rainbow pin on his bag, talking as easily about the boys he’s dated as he does the girls—Kageyama has negative ten expertise asking people out. It gets into negative numbers because, once in high school, he’d had to ask a girl not to go out with him, after communicating poorly and given her the wrong impression about a tutoring session. This is the extent of his experience.

And then there’s Kenma.

Kageyama had met Kenma a few weeks after he and Hinata started hanging out together regularly. Hinata invited him along to a cultural festival, to meet up with some of his other friends. The minute Kageyama had seen them together, he’d felt it. Not that he knows what _it_ is… it’s like in movies where you can always tell, by the music that plays, when the romantic lead is being introduced. On the day of the cultural festival, when Hinata raised a hand and said, “And this is my friend, Kenma!” Kageyama heard that telltale music.

Hinata likes Kenma a lot. He’s always saying so. How cool Kenma is, how good at video games, how smart in school. Kageyama… isn’t cool, and he sucks at video games, and his grades are passing at best. Thinking about this has always made Kageyama’s stomach ache, even before he knew about the crush. Maybe he should have caught on earlier.

And you know—it’s not like Hinata is wrong about Kenma. He really is cool. He’s so good at gaming he could have one of those video play-throughs online, and Kageyama would probably watch it, even though he knows shit about the subject. Whenever he asks Kenma a school question, he knows he’s going to get the right answer. Being around Kenma makes Kageyama feel different than when he’s around Hinata, but some elements are weirdly similar: his heart rate picking up, his palms going clammy. The way he stumbles over any sentence that’s more than a few words. But Hinata is this… light fluffy creature. Happiness spun into a boy. Kenma, with his strange golden eyes, and two-tone hair piled into a bun on top of his head, and the equal sign in black ink on the inner crook of his left arm; Kenma, a year their senior, giving away very little but somehow always seeming to know; Kenma, scary. That’s what Kageyama decides. He’s scared of Kozume Kenma.

So it really sucks, because he wants to date Hinata, and the guy sitting in his way is this easygoing fourth year genius who his crush has professed to adore, time and time again.

He’s at a loss. He mopes for a while.

And then he’s like, _fuck it_ . It’s getting to the point where he’s frustrated enough being around Hinata that he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold his tongue, or keep from making a too-forward move (also potentially involving his tongue), which he doesn’t think Hinata will like. But he’s twenty and he has a lot of _hormones_ and it’s all very unpredictable. He has to make something happen, and fast.

“Let’s hang out this weekend,” he tells Hinata over breakfast one day. Hinata waves his chopsticks like he’s conducting some invisible orchestra.

“What did you wanna do!”

“Can I just come over, or something?”

“Oh, hmm, well, I was actually going to spend a couple of nights at Kenma’s house this weekend. I wanted to get out of the dorm.” Kageyama’s fist clenches reflexively—not that Hinata would pick up on this. He is, as always, untouched by the realm of nuanced emotion. “But you should come hang out with us,” he adds, leaning forward, his knuckles brushing Kageyama’s arm. This is probably a meaningless or accidental gesture, but it sends a shiver down Kageyama’s spine anyway. And Hinata is smiling at him. “We’re gonna order a pizza! It’ll be fun.”

Kageyama doesn’t argue with him. It’s fine, he tells himself; at some point this weekend he’ll corner Hinata and ask him what he _really_ wants to ask, not ‘let’s hang out’ or ‘can I come over’ but ‘will you go on a date with me’; he’ll be direct as hell, because that’s what he’s best at. He steels himself for it.

He preps for his big day the same way he used to prep for matches in high school, even fitting in a couple of stretches before he rings the doorbell at Kenma’s. _A ready body is a ready mind_ , his coach used to say. He figures that advice probably applies here, too. Probably. And so he slams his fist into the buzzer.

Seconds pass, and then he hears the thump of feet from behind the front door. Kenma doesn’t take such heavy steps, does he? It has to be Hinata. That’s what he expects to see, and he feels excited at the prospect of it, actually. Excited to see Hinata’s smiling face.

The door opens and he’s greeted with those golden cat eyes and he _jumps_.

“What?” says Kenma, giving him a narrow look.

“Nothing.”

Kenma shrugs, then turns and start back down the front hall. “Come on in.” Kageyama does, shutting the door, and slipping off his shoes. This is his first time at Kenma’s—presumably his parents’ place, because it’s big and nice, a lot of modern light wood paneling and skylights. The house strikes him as clean and still and _quiet_ , which means that the other Kozumes must be out for the day, and also...

“Where’s—”

Kenma has disappeared from Kageyama’s sight, but his voice carries clearly down the hall. “Shouyou had to run out and pick up his sister. He’ll be back in a few hours.” _Fucking Hinata_. Here Kageyama is, trying to sneak in a confession, and Hinata doesn’t even have the decency to stick around, instead leaving Kageyama with _his rival._ Of all the dumbasses to fall for, he thinks he must have landed the dumbest ass of all.

Trying not to fume out the ears too obviously, he marches down the hall, tracing Kenma’s steps. He finds his host on a stool in a spacious kitchen, chopping off bits of orange cheese from a bigger block. He’s wearing socks and sweatpants, but like, _cool_ sweatpants. Made from some kind of terrycloth material. How do you make sweatpants look _cool_? And his shirt is tie-dye, of all things. “Want some?” he says, lifting one of his cheese squares. Kageyama’s stomach grumbles on cue. He’s always in the mood for cheese squares.

“Yeah.”

Kenma just gives him a nod. He slices a few more, lines a plate with the snack, and Kageyama stands there, awkward, fists at his side. Eventually Kenma dips into the fridge and pulls out a couple of sodas. “You like lychee?” He glances at Kageyama around the door, and Kageyama nods, even though he isn’t sure he does. “Me too.” Kenma picks up the plate with his other hand and moves to leave the kitchen, and then remembers Kageyama’s weird, vibrating presence. He tilts his head in the direction of an archway; through here Kageyama can see a television and couch. “Bloodborne,” he says, like that’s an explanation.

“Blood..”

“It’s a video game.”

Kageyama ducks his head. It’s not like he has strong feelings about video games, but he’s oddly embarrassed not to have known this one. _He thinks I’m an idiot._ Kenma slips out of the kitchen without waiting to see if he follows. And he does, after a moment of brooding-in-place.

Kenma falls onto the far end of the couch and sets the plate on the center cushion, looking totally at home, probably because... he is. Kageyama settles down on the other side of the plate, unable to relax, though objectively it’s a pretty comfortable couch. Kenma is booting up the television and console.

“I’ve never played this,” Kageyama manages. He desperately wants Hinata to get back. He considers discreetly pulling out his phone and sending him a pathetic text about it. He knows how to deal with Hinata, his noise and energy, but Kenma... he’s another entity altogether. They run on different frequencies, him and Kenma.

“It’s cool, I’ll teach you.” The game’s start menu has appeared on the screen, some weird music playing. Kageyama is seized with anxiety at the idea of being shitty at something in front of Kenma.

“It’s okay. Just play.”

He feels Kenma really properly look at him, with a searching gaze, and the back of his neck burns. He keeps his eyes glued to the screen but even so, with Kenma it’s like he’s translucent: Kenma sees straight to the heart of him. He sees straight to the heart of everyone. That must be why he likes Hinata so much, he can see just how beautiful he is, inside and out. _I can see it too_ , Kageyama reminds himself. _What’s bad that he’s going to see in me? Except that I want to get with his boyfriend_.

Boyfriend. He doesn’t even know they are, _boyfriends_ , not for sure. Hinata would mention it, if they were. Wouldn’t he?

“Well,” Kenma finally sighs. “If you want to sub in, just let me know.”

“Mmm.”

So Kageyama occupies himself with the cheese squares while Kenma flies through the game, only pausing to nibble on their snack. Minutes go by like this and Kageyama starts to feel like he’s five and on a badly arranged playdate, like his mother had just stuck him in with her friend’s kid so they could gossip in the other room. It shouldn’t be like that—he’s hung out with Kenma before, after all, and they get along just fine—except it’s never been just the two of them like this. And neither of them is a conversation starter.

Eventually he does pull out his phone and check for a message from Hinata. _I’m coming back soon_ or _give me fifteen!_ But their messenger window is just the last conversation they’d had, a few days earlier. Hinata was teasing him for not knowing the name of some pop group, and then he’d sent him a bunch of videos, calling it an “education.” It makes Kageyama smile now just like it did then.

“Are you texting him?”

His head jerks up. Kenma isn’t even _looking_ at him, he’s still focused on the game, but somehow he’d... “What?”

“You only smile like that when you’re thinking about Shouyou.”

He can’t help that he gapes. What the fuck else is he supposed to do? _He did it. He saw right through you_. “Uh,” says Kageyama. He looks around the room, briefly, but there is no one here who can save him.

“Don’t freak out about it,” Kenma adds, almost with... a smile in his voice? Kageyama cranes around and tries to spy the corner of his mouth turning up. He can’t even imagine, Kenma _smiling._ Has he ever seen it before? “I get it.”

And just like that Kageyama doesn’t want to see Kenma’s smile anymore. _I get it_. Of course he gets it, because him and Hinata are... it’s mutual. Kageyama sinks back into the couch. They _like_ each other, even if they aren’t dating, they’re probably something. This realization sinks through him like wet concrete, the worst feeling in the world.

“I told you not to freak out about it.”

He notices, just because he’s staring forward vacantly and it happens to be in his line of sight, that Kenma has paused the game. He turns ever so slightly and Kenma is watching him with a gently furrowed brow, controller in his lap. “Shit,” he hears himself say.

“Listen...” Kenma begins, but Kageyama’s head is in his hands before he can get out whatever it is he wanted to say.

“You like him too. Shit.”

There’s a long pause before Kenma says, a note of embarrassment escaping into his voice, “Yeah.”

“Are you dating?” It comes out harsher than Kageyama had meant. Like an accusation. Maybe it is. It certainly has the weight of one, the way it hangs in the air between them, so heavy and bitter.

“We... are, I guess, yeah.”

Kageyama swears again, this time more to himself, because he can feel his chest caving in. _They’re together... they get to be together. Without me._ He pictures them, Kenma and Hinata, Hinata leaning in to kiss Kenma, Kenma’s arms around Hinata’s narrow waist, and he could scream, it’s so far away and frustrating. He wants to reach out and grab them, to touch them, one hand for each. _Don’t leave me behind_ , he is saying, in this agonized fantasy. _Don’t forget me. Please be there, please let me be there too._

“You don’t get it,” Kenma’s voice mutters, somewhere near and growing louder. “Hey...” He draws in a deep breath, attempting to latch on to a little bit of sanity. “Tobio.”

He starts at the use of his given name, snapping to stare at Kenma, who has closed the gap between them on the sofa.  He smells different than Kageyama can remember, but it’s a clean scent. Appealing. There are strands of blonde-black hair falling in his face.  

Kenma reaches out and... touches the back of his hand to Kageyama’s arm. “You’re not getting it,” he says again, his voice just so _soft_ , and Kageyama’s stomach tightens. Maybe he... _isn’t_ getting it?

“He likes _you—”_

“He likes you too.” _What._

“How do you—”

“Because we’ve talked about it.” Kenma pulls back slightly, but Kageyama leans forward, keeping the distance between them the same. Whoops. “We’ve talked about you. A lot.”

“What are you... saying?” he asks. Suspicious. Excited. His heart’s doing a crazy thing.

Kenma lifts the hand from his arm and slips his fingers, long and pale, under Kageyama’s chin. He’s barely touching him but somehow turns Kageyama’s head anyway, so their faces are close. Kenma’s face... it’s this surface of easy thoughtfulness, and the eyes that are strange are all the more lovely for it, and his mouth opens full and pink. Shit. _Shit._ “I like you too.” A really embarrassing noise escapes from the back of Kageyama’s throat. _What is happening._ “And you like me back, don’t you?”

He’s supposed to be _scared_ of Kenma, he thought, but here he is with this boy (man, really, fuck) inches from his lips and all he wants is to close that gap, to feel that warmth, and the image he’d seen before of Hinata and Kenma together—it hits him that perhaps he doesn’t want to _be_ Kenma so much as he wants to _be with_ Kenma, too, just as much as he wants Hinata. It had taken a different shape in his heart, but only because Kenma and Hinata are so different themselves; it makes sense that Kenma would draw out a new species of attraction from him, and sometimes new can be frightening at first.

(It takes him two years, three months, and a handful of days and weeks to realize he has a crush on Kozume Kenma.)

Ultimately Kageyama doesn’t answer the question. Not with words, anyway. It’s funny, that urge that he’d been afraid would seize him in Hinata’s presence? It gets him now, instead, and he’s pulling Kenma’s mouth to his own, gripping his face and kissing him, tongue in his mouth. He tastes slightly of the lychee soda from before, and... Kageyama thinks he must like lychee flavor after all. Kenma grabs his wrists and makes a noise in answer, and that’s—so satisfying, shit, to know he’s caught Kozume Kenma by surprise. Almost as satisfying as it would be to make him smile.

Kageyama pulls away when he’s out of breath, and he gets to see that wish come true, too.

Kenma is smiling and Kageyama says, bewildered, he still can’t quite believe it, “I liked you this entire time.”

“Yeah,” says Kenma, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “You’re really as clueless as I thought.”

“Hinata’s clueless too!”

“That’s true, he only knew you were into him because I told him.”

“How long has he...”

Kenma’s still smiling. It’s a small, bemused expression, but it feels like a lot coming from him. “A couple months.” Oh, the way he’d touched Kageyama’s arm at breakfast, and he _knew_?

“Dumbass,” Kageyama mutters, glaring off into space. But at least... _I could get to be with them both_. Kenma’s hand trails down his shoulder idly but Kageyama reacts to it, it makes his throat catch. “What do you guys...” _Want from me?_ is what he’s going to say, but he catches Kenma’s expression and he knows the question is already understood. That’s new, and... he likes it. With Hinata he’s always having to spell things out exactly.

“You could date us.”

“Date you.” He swallows hard. “Both of you?”

Kenma nods. He clears his throat and sits back from Kageyama, pulling his legs to his chest. “There are things Hinata likes... he wants things that I don’t.” Kageyama thinks he might be seeing a bit of shyness in Kenma, right now. He has never really thought of Kenma as shy—he always seemed more cool and aloof, but perhaps that was an error in judgment. Kageyama has been known to make them.

“I don’t want to be anybody’s pinch server,” he says, and afterwards he can hear that maybe this wasn’t the most delicate way to put it. But Kenma sees through his conversational clumsiness.

“That’s not what it is. Not at all.”

Kageyama swallows. He has never really thought of anything beyond monogamy—that’s probably why he didn’t even stop to consider he might have feelings for Kenma in addition to Hinata. And now it’s all a little overwhelming: in the movies, the only place he gets his romantic expertise, it’s always two people, never three. He knows only about couples, pairs. This alternative arrangement, it’s _confusing_ —but it does make his stomach lift pleasantly when he thinks of it. He had liked kissing Kenma, _a lot_ , and he knows he’d like kissing Hinata too, so…

“You’ll get used to it,” Kenma says, like a mind-reader. Kageyama squints at him.

“How do you know, have you done this before?”

Kenma blinks, glances at the television, and then looks back to him with a raised brow. “No. I was making an assumption.” Kageyama exhales. Oddly enough, Kenma’s inexperience makes him feel better. They can fumble through this together. Nothing’s going to be taken for granted, and he can ask as many stupid questions as he wants. “We can talk about it more when Shouyou gets here. He’s going to be upset that I asked you without him, anyway.” Kenma reaches for his controller but stops himself, glancing at Kageyama again. “Do you accept?”

Kageyama’s heart rate, which had stalled while they talked, surges again. _Dating Hinata and Kenma. At the same time. While they date each other._ He feels like he ought to be thinking about it more than he is, like, doesn’t he need a game plan or a best logical route?

On impulse, he reaches out to grab Kenma at the shoulders—Kenma makes some noise that’s akin to _huh_ —and Kageyama kisses him again, possibly fiercer than before, since it’s not softened by the circumstance of a first kiss. He tastes lychee again, feels Kenma tentatively lick his bottom lip, and then pops away. His face is fixed, a determined glare, and he’s still holding Kenma by the shoulders.

“I accept.”

Kenma’s eyes flicker down to his lips and back up again, and he smiles sleepily. “Don’t tell Shouyou I got to kiss you first.”

On cue, there’s the sound of the front door opening, and a familiar, high voice. _Does he have a key?_

“Natsu threw up in my mom’s car! I can’t believe it…”

Kageyama drops Kenma and flies off the couch, feeling like he’s been caught in some hideously compromising position as Hinata’s voice grows in volume and he arrives in the living room, a backpack slung over one shoulder, glancing between the two of them curiously.

“We weren’t doing _anything_!” Kageyama shouts. On the couch Kenma has his head bowed and his shoulders shake slightly. _Laughing_.

Hinata doesn’t get what he’s saying—of course he doesn’t get it, he’s _Hinata_. “Why aren’t you doing anything? Are you just sitting around? I thought Kenma was going to teach you Bloodborne.”

“Shouyou, I told him.”

Hinata gasps and drops his backpack straight to the floor. He and Kageyama lock eyes—there is a very vivid moment of _I know that you know that I like you and I also like Kenma_ running between them. Hinata raises a hand and points at him, like he wants to make an accusation, but his mouth flops open uselessly, so he turns the finger to point it at Kenma, but… his mouth flops open uselessly, again.

Kenma adds, softer, still from his comfortable place on the couch, “He said yes.”

Hinata lowers his hand. He looks at Kageyama differently, this time. Amazed and delighted. “You did?” _What did you think I was going to say, dumbass?_ Kageyama wonders. A smile flits onto Hinata’s lips—and how long has he thought about those lips, shit, and now Hinata is taking a tentative step toward him, and another—

“Kenma and I kissed,” he blurts. Ah, shit. What was the likelihood he was ever going to be able to hold that one in?

He gets why Kenma (currently making the worst face that Kageyama has ever seen him make, holy shit) hadn’t wanted Hinata to know about this, because Hinata _shrieks_ and turns to Kenma in a fury.

“You _promised!_ ”

“He kissed me, there was nothing I could do—”

“You have to fend him off, Kenma!”

“Just do it now, he said yes.”

Hinata rears back, then wheels around to stare at Kageyama, frozen in place by their argument. Do it now… does that mean—

Hinata takes two quick strides toward him and grabs the front of his shirt. Yes, okay, it means what he thinks it means.

Ultimately, for a lot of straining, he can’t reach Kageyama’s mouth on his own. So Kageyama steps into him, a hand around his waist—Hinata goes instantly pink at this, though he’s still clinging to Kageyama’s shirt—and he presses his mouth to Hinata’s.

This is more the kind of kiss he would expect to share with Kenma: quiet, gentle, easy. But earlier he’d shoved his mouth against Kenma’s like his life depended on it, and here he is kissing Hinata, their lips just barely moving, the touch between them not much heavier than the warmth of Hinata’s breath around his chin. It is not like any embrace he would have ever imagined they’d share, in all his fantasizing and contemplating, but it’s… wonderful. And that’s just perfect for today, isn’t it: wonderful, and unexpected, and only more wonderful for that.

He pulls up, and they are blinking at one another, both red and going even redder at the expressions on one another’s faces. Their embarrassment mounts between them. Kageyama turns away, to stare at the floor, before he starts blubbering nonsense sounds.

“Relax, both of you.” That’s Kenma’s voice coming from the couch. Hinata jumps on the opportunity to move on—he bounds toward Kenma and jumps _on_ to him.

“Kenma! Kenma! I’m back, did you know?” And peppers his face with kisses, at which Kenma wrinkles like an over-loved cat.

Kageyama watches them and realizes he’s… envious, but not quite sure if he’s—invited or included, not yet. Kenma catches his gaze over Hinata’s shoulder, and the corner of his mouth turns up. He runs his hand over the vacant spot on the sofa beside him. “Come on. There’s no way you’re getting out of learning Bloodborne, now.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! this was my first time writing poly /sweats


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